


Roy the Actual Mustang

by Cam_bob



Category: Fullmetal Alchemist - All Media Types
Genre: Chimera Edward Elric, Chimeras, Gen, Horses, I have no plan and no expectations, This took a weird turn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-07-28
Updated: 2020-08-03
Packaged: 2021-03-05 21:01:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 3
Words: 3,819
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25561732
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cam_bob/pseuds/Cam_bob
Summary: Al and Ed part ways, traveling East and West as planned but... on less than great terms-- so what is the younger Elric going to do when his brother turns up a week late for their return home, missing something important?*****I got somehow got stuck on the idea of Ed getting a horse and this happened, idk man.No I don't know anything about horses, why do you ask?teen rating is just to be safe bc I swear compulsively and it'll probably get in there one way or another, just swearing.
Relationships: Alphonse Elric & Edward Elric
Comments: 4
Kudos: 16





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> This is probably so bad and weird but I promised myself I'd start actually writing these types of things down and doing stuff with them, sO.

The train rumbled and bumbled along, just as uncomfortable as his brother had always complained it was, but Al Elric didn’t register the rock hard seats or his subtle bouncing. He would later; the pain would be noticed and he would complain to Mai Chang just as loud, if not louder than Edward had to him all those years ago. As he first set off though, he didn’t take note of any of the things that brought the armor bound child he’d been joy, nor any of the things that brought irritation. He didn’t take in anything except the empty seat across from him for several hours. 

This had of course been their plan from the start, Al going East, Ed going west… a few years without one another after spending so many attached at the hip. It would be good for them, Al had promised his brother. 

Al contemplated if his brother’s absence would have been so unbearable if he hadn’t been mad when they parted. If Ed hadn’t been hurt and seething and left a day before they’d planned. If Ed hadn’t spit venom when Al tried to stop him, tried explain why he’d used the stone. 

Al sighed and tried his best to shake the thoughts of Ed’s words and expressions out of his mind.  _ He didn’t mean it _ , he promised himself.  _ He was just upset. He’ll get over it. _ Al could feel in his bones though;  _ He did. He wasn’t. _

**_He won’t._ **

* * *

Al had been carrying his silent guilt since he’d learned what his brother had given to get him back, two years at that point. Ed always said that he’d gotten something back much more important than his alchemy. That he didn’t regret it, and Al  _ did _ believe him. Al knew that had he been in the same situation, and he’d had nothing else to give, he’d have done the same, no hesitation. He  _ knew _ that Ed didn’t regret it. 

That didn’t mean that Al didn't see his brother, when he softly clapped his hands and tried to reach for that energy within, energy that just wasn't there anymore. Al saw his brothers longing, and the subtle depression that followed. A lifelong passion didn’t just go away, and Ed would miss his alchemy for the rest of his life, because he loved his brother more than alchemy, and because he’d held to his morals with a steel grip.

Ed had held unyielding, where Al’s hand had wavered. Ed never knew that Al had used the Philosopher's Stone already; not then, not two years after. 

Al knew. It always stayed with him, that disgusting secret that he couldn’t brush aside, that boiled in his soul whenever he saw Ed clap his hands,  _ ‘worth a try…’ _ Ed would murmur to himself, trying so damn hard to stamp down his hope that one day something would happen. And Al would watch from the shadows of the hallway, swallow the bile in his throat that rose as he watched his brother attempt such simple transmutations and fail. Transmutations that Ed could’ve done in his sleep if he’d  _ just used the stone that had been  _ **_offered_ ** _ to him _ . 

Two years, and Al had reached his limit. He made a late phone call to doctor Marcoh. He’d brought the stones. Al had done it. 

He’d done it for Ed, He’d gotten Ed’s gate back. 

Ed yelled things that Al was slowly blocking out and absorbing all at once.

Ed had seethed and spit and left without a goodbye. 

* * *

On the day that they were both supposed to return, three years to the day later, Winry had a pie waiting. Al was overjoyed to be home, and for a few hours he was so involved with Granny and Winry, talk of his and Mai’s up-coming wedding, and pie eating (there were actually many pies), that he barely noticed Ed’s absence. However hours stretched as they do, and it grew and grew until Al and the Rockbells sat in it’s yawning maw, anxiety clawing into their hearts, as they all settled in to ‘go to bed’, and after. Those massive black jaws slowly closed over the next few days. The Rockbells were being slowly crushed by the thought that something had happened to Ed, maybe because of his automail-- that he had died and decomposed in some random ditch in a far western land, and they’d never have him back. 

Something happening to Ed didn’t really occur to Al until Winry mentioned it a few days later, her worry that his automail had failed him and he’d died. In their years apart, Al had developed a somewhat childish idea that his brother was untouchable, especially with his alchemy back. Al had been more involved with the thought that Ed simply didn’t want to see him again, and hadn’t come back. Even once the idea of Ed being incapable of returning had been presented to him, Al found himself dead set on the idea that Ed had chosen to stay away. 

A week after their scheduled meeting, Al was getting ready to leave again, finding himself unable to stay in the house he and Ed had half-grown up in, called home for so many years. 

Then downstairs, Winry screamed “AL!” with such anguish and urgency, Al thought she’d been stabbed.

After tripping all the way down the stairs, and landing on his back, Al sits up and looks around, frantic to help his childhood best friend. Instead, Al immediately zones in on a man in a ragged, red leather coat, standing with his back to him. 

His blond braid lay half-undone, and seeing it, Al came undone himself. He feels himself crying as he runs to his brother, word-vomiting everything. Then, at the last second, a puffy-eyed Roy Mustang catches Al’s tackle with a silent headshake. Al gets pulled around in front of Ed and suddenly remembers that Winry had screamed-- He can see why. Ed’s eyes are blank and distant, his expression is listless. Al knows almost as soon as he sees the face.

That something had happened to Ed’s soul. 

“Ed…” Al murmurs, reaching and grasping Ed’s shoulders; he knows, but he needs to try. “Ed, please, say something to me….” His voice is picking up volume, but it’s cracking like glass and shaking as he wraps his arms around his unresponsive brother. “It’s me… It’s Al, please… get angry, or be happy, just-- scream,  _ shout, laugh, cry _ \--  **_tell me you hate me_ ** ! _ Anything _ ! Ed, anything, just… just be in there… show me you’re in there...” 

Mustang pulled him back as Al dissolved into a puddle of misery, weeping at the irony of the cosmos-- He’d once been a soul without a body. Now, there was no soul in Ed’s body. Mustang brings Al onto the front porch as he breaks, thinking of all the ways this could be his fault. 

As he slowly came back from his fit of grief the next morning, Al learned that the small party of soldiers had been looking for a joyful reunion with the two brothers. They had instead found Al’s brother, dressed like a cowboy, sitting upright in a ditch a mile outside of Risembool, eyes open but unseeing. 

When they suggested that they bring Ed to the hospital in Central, Al found that he couldn’t really argue, but he had a bad feeling in his gut. He went of course-- he doubted he would ever leave Ed alone again, especially not if he spent the rest of his life this vulnerable. 

Which was a nauseating thought that Al regretted having. 

They drove in the military-issued cars that the group took out to Risembool in the first place, Brosh, Ross, and the Armstrongs in one (very unfortunate) car, Falman, Fuery, Breda, and Havoc in another (slightly less unfortunate) car; and in the last car, Mustang and Hawkeye in the front seat, Ed and Al in the back, and the smothering, tense silence permeating every inch of the car. Once they arrived in Central, a bum threw himself onto the hood of this last car, causing Mustang to swerve and crash into a row of trash cans and a fence. Al wondered why he never just listened to his gut. 

  
  



	2. Chapter 2

Al gives a frustrated yell when he looks to his right and finds that his brother was completely unfazed by the crash, still sitting in the same half-slumped position he had been the entire drive. Ed doesn't twitch at the noise either. The younger brother took a deep breath and blinked back his tears, before he stepped out of the car to join Mustang and Hawkeye, who were already screaming at the man with everything they had; overreacting just enough that Al could tell their frustrations weren’t necessarily with the bum. 

In contrast, Al couldn’t really bring himself to be mad at the bum, who had likely just had a very bad night himself. As good as the release would surely feel, he didn’t have any right to be mad at anyone but himself for his brother’s state. So it ended that Al stood listlessly to the side, and watched the two adultier-adults yell at the bum, who stood at a height that would’ve made Ed either scream or drool-- _ if Ed were in there (shut up.) _ \-- in a ratty leather coat and pants, the look of them suggesting the man had problems with stray dogs. His scraggly, greasy hair and beard were gray and hung halfway to his elbows, and Al was just finishing taking all this in, and wondering what Ed would have snickered behind his hand to his younger brother-- _ if Ed were in there--  _ when the younger realizes that the back seat was empty.  _ Ed’s literally not in there _ .

Al frantically whips around, and to his immense confusion, finds that a horse-sized dog is gently leading his brother down the street by the sleeve of his coat. 

Hysterical laughter starts to bubble up as Al screams down the street, “ED!.... What  _ are  _ **_you DOING_ ** ?!”

Ed does not respond, and actually starts running when the dog starts into a steady gallop. “What the hell…?” Al whispered to himself as he broke into a sprint to catch up, the soldiers right on his heels, and the bum wandering off, mumbling to himself like he was having a very serious discussion. “What the hell is this?” He asks himself, feeling like he's in some kind of psychotic dream. 

And that might actually be it; these dreams usually revolve around Ed. 

He can hope. While he hopes, Al chases his impassive shell of a brother, who is being led loosely by the hand to run like his life depended on it, by a dog that may not have been a dog at all for how weird it looked. 

That didn’t happen in real life, right?

* * *

Four days after the dog escaped with his brother, Al still wasn't entirely sure that this  _ wasn't _ a dream, but he’d resolved to be serious about the bizarre circumstances for the sake of caution. In those four days, Al and Mustang’s team had collected themselves and as many other military friends as they could get a hold of, and launched a massive search effort, although the question of how to search for a criminal dog, which Al now knew was an Irish Wolfhound, was somewhat difficult. 

On the fourth day, as Al and Mustang were going to the Lieutenant general’s office, they were cut off by another General, the one who had loaned them Hawkeye’s friend, Rebecca. 

“Lieutenant General Mustang, how’s the hunting?” he asked, eyes sharper than his amiable tone. 

Mustang cleared his throat and chuckled a tense laugh, “General Morgan, a pleasant surprise! Ah, well, we’ve only been at it for two days or so… and our culprit is a bit of an oddball, so it’s a little rough at the moment.”

“Oh-ho?” the man chortled, his interest momentarily piqued, “Odd how?”

“O-oh,” Mustang stuttered, clearly unsure of how to say that their nefarious kidnapper was a weird stray. 

“Out with it now, Mustang.” the man barks, an odd kind of impatience in his eye.

“Ah, well our culprit is… a… stray... dog.” Mustang answers haltingly. The General stares with unwavering intensity, his face stern. “A,  _ very strange _ , stray… dog.” he defends meekly.

The man’s eyes pierce into Mustang so sharply, that Al fights himself not to take a step back-- the only plausible explanation for Mustang not doing so himself, that he’s frozen in fear. As the moment of dead silence turns into two and three, Al feels his stomach plummeting. One person might make all the difference in the world in a situation like this, but the man might demand they send Rebecca back immediately, or worse, the higher officer could go straight to Fuhrer Grumman, or Mustang’s commanding General. No matter how much Grumman liked Mustang, his reputation and career could be seriously damaged, or even destroyed by something like this. 

“ _ GOOD GOD MAN, WHY DIDN’T YOU SAY SO SOONER?! _ ”

“ _ General Morgan?! _ ” Mustang squeaks, clearly having had a ticket for the same train as Al. 

“ _ I’ve been closely following several instances like this over the past two years-- I’m almost certain there’s a chimera lab making these animals-- ones who have human-like intelligence from real humans, and in turn using them to kidnap new test subjects-- _ you say one of these animals kidnapped the retired Fullmetal Alchemist?” The man rushes, to Al and Mustangs shock. 

“Y-yeah!” Al yelps, suddenly flooded with a powerful emotion-- hope or hysteria. “My brother wasn’t in his right mind, something had happened to him, and the dog just led him off!” 

“Perhaps he had already been in the chimera labs and he escaped-- this is the Fullmetal Alchemist we’re talking about-- maybe they had already done tests on him, or he was drugged-- whatever it was, it doesn’t matter--” the man lunged forward and grabbed Al’s shoulders in a biting grip, “You’re his younger brother?” 

With those piercing eyes on him now, and the hands on his arms, Al found it was all he could do to nod his head. 

The man pulled Al into an almost aggressive side-hug.

“THE MILITARY PROTECTS IT’S VETERANS, AND THEIR FAMILIES!” the man yelled maniacally, before shifting back to the shoulder grip and continuing in earnest, “Alphonse Elric-- my own mother was a veteran, and I pledge on her grave to you,  _ we will find your brother and bring him home to you _ . I promise my personal help, and that of every soldier under my command-- these heathens will be brought to justice.” 

Al felt tears welling in his eyes, and he slumped into the rock hard grip, breath stuttering. Keeping his head bowed, he whispered, “Thank you, General Morgan…  _ Thank you so much… _ ” 

After a moment, the man set Al back on his feet and the trio moved to the General’s office, to look over the information the man had compiled in his two year hunt for the chimera lab. Al finally started to relax a bit-- dream or not, he now had a scary, but good General who had their strongest lead and his own soldiers under his command. He was going to get his brother back.

* * *

That night Al laid in bed, tormented by the image of his brother as he’d known him before, locked in a stockade like the military used for convicted state alchemists, crammed into a cage and toyed with until he had nothing left inside him. 

  
  



	3. Chapter 3

A month after they started their search, Lt. Gen. Mustang blew the doors off a decrepit warehouse in a small city to the east of Central, and they found exactly what they’d been expecting-- nine human beings, nine animals, and Al’s brother, who was being drowned. Eight of the people and animals rushed forward to hold them back, as the bum--the same one that Mustang had hit with his car--took off with his water-logged brother and the wolfhound. 

Heart in his throat, Al ran out through the front and circled around the building, where he found the man and dog trying to run for it. Swiveling around with hackles raised, the dog stood its ground for a moment, before lunging at Al, lips pulled back in a feral snarl. 

The young alchemist had never hurt an animal in his life, he had _never wanted to_ ; he sucker punched that dog in the face and out of the air harder than he’d hit anyone in the years since he’d gotten his body back. As the dog hit the ground with pained yelp, the bum leading Ed away yelled and crashed to the ground himself, confirming General Morgan’s theory that the ‘humans’ were being controlled by the chimeras. Al felt a flare of viscous satisfaction deep in his chest as he jumped over the beasts and ran to his brother-- still a shell of what he’d been, but alive.

A few hours later, the chimeras were in custody, and the Elric brothers were in Al’s hotel room, with guards stationed at every conceivable and inconceivable point of entrance-- which Al would need to thank General Morgan for later. Ed had been looked over by a doctor, but sure enough, there wasn’t anything the doctor could find _physically_ wrong with Ed, nor anything he could do to miraculously restore his mind. Now the only thing Al could do was help Morgan track down the chimera labs and look after his brother the best he could. 

Unfortunately, Al would learn over the next two weeks that spending every waking moment with his brother wasn’t quite as... enjoyable, as it had been when they were younger. The issue was, Ed didn’t do anything for himself anymore; he didn’t walk unless he was told to, he didn’t speak, or read, or attempt to do backflips off of the furniture, or spontaneously attack his brother. Al had once spent 15 minutes making short comments that Mustang would’ve been proud of, before outright _telling_ him that he was short for another 15, but nothing. It was lonely, and made Al homesick for a time without a home all the more. 

* * *

Al woke up with a stiff pain in his neck and shoulders, a sharp pain in his temple, and the taste of blood in his mouth. Sluggishly, he started to take in his situation; the fact that he was in a stockade, the type that was mounted to the floor, with a hole for the head; the fact that he’d apparently taken a brick to the temple; the fact that bood had poured in a wide band from the head wound, down to his collarbone. Looking around the best he could, Al found he was in some kind of storage space, with a low ceiling and cages stacked in a long aisle, all the way up to the ceiling. 

He groaned meekly and hung in his restraint, stomach rolling and world spinning. He hadn’t been concussed since he’d gotten his body back, it was hard to remember what to do, the last time he had any experience with a concussion had been when Ed--

_Where is Ed._

Al was still out of it and on the verge of throwing up, but he raised his head and started to look for his brother, the brother who was incapable of defending himself, the one he had promised himself would never get away from him again. That brother. 

Instead of Ed, Al found a different face approaching him, one his cotton-stuffed head took a moment to process.

“Please excuse me for this Alphonse, but I had my orders.” a rich, melodious voice floats over as three wolves begin to circle the young alchemist. “Still, despite the treatment, know that I am grateful to you for your help rounding up those errant chimeras.” General Morgan chuckles heartily, “Why, in the two weeks since we caught them, my men have rounded up almost all of the rest of the escapees.”

“Hhnngggghhh.” Al whines, the only way he can express his growing horror. Maybe the man had been scary and a little odd at times, but Al had thought he was genuine. _Naive_ , hadn’t his dad called him naive? Too trusting?

Now, the way he was talking… Al’s head was still too muddled to really put it together, but he knew he’d done something bad. He’d helped Morgan, and he’d hurt someone. 

Al blinks and realizes that Morgan had left. He growls softly, but can’t pull himself together enough to find a way out, or even… 

“Ey t’ere now, don’ go an do that.” a garbled voice chuckles just a couple feet to Al’s left, pulling him away from the caress of sleep he’d been losing himself to. 

Al can only make little mumbling noises as he does his best to look for the source of the voice. 

Bum. 

Al can’t wrap his head around it; it’s the same bum. 

“Concussed I’hd guess. Passin’ ou’s a bad idea.” 

He knows he should probably respond, but it's all he can do to stare at the man-- and his dog, in the cage with him. 

“Th’... th’doh…?” Al slurs.

“Gon’ have ta be a lil’ more clearer, kid.” 

“‘Re you… ‘m I talk’n to th’... doh…?” 

“Oh, hyeh-- naw, me n’ scratch’re connect’d, but we ain’ the same thing. Two souls bond’d throu alchemy, tha’s us.”

“M’r’gn… he knew thah…?” 

“Hoo… hate’a tell ya, kid, buh Morg’n’s one’a us. He’s done a lil’ differen’, likes ta think he’s so much better, but he’s the alchemist’s lap dog. Yeh, a dog of the military Ih ever did see.”

Al tries to comprehend that for a long moment, thinking about how often he’d used to compare Morgan to a wolf-- and then the man comes to him with three wolves at his heels… souls bonded… with alchemy… Ed’s missing soul… military…?

He tries to make eye contact with the man as best he can, “Mil’t’ry lab…?”

“Yep.”

“Ed… ‘scape…?”

“‘Bout two, three years ago now, yeh.”

“He… ‘kay then? ‘Is soul?”

“Back then? Shoo’, he was okay when I saw ‘im, two ‘r three mon’s ago.”

“S-so he di’n… loos ‘is soul… ‘ere?” 

“Kick’d der asses when they tried.”

Al feels a ghost of a smile come onto his face, but it falls away as he asks, “M-... Morg’n?” 

“... ‘bin hunt’n us like foxes since the day we got ou’. Hated Ed more’n anybody.”

Al grit his teeth, “Mmanip-lated?” 

The bum is quiet for a long moment, and then, “I’d bet Scratch’s life. And a familiar chimera… you hold your familiars life pretty high above e’rrythin’ else.” 

Silence loomed and Al started to doze again, until the bum started asking about Ed, about stories he’d heard from Ed. Al gets as involved in the answers as he can, recognizing what the man was trying to do.

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I am so sorry to whoever (if anyone) gets to this note, because that means you read the conversation between concussed Al and my old hobo character, and I can imagine how painful that was.

**Author's Note:**

> Constructive critique is very appreciated, and ideas are very welcome if you somehow like this dumpster fire.


End file.
